Chicken Pot Pie Bake

 The rotisserie chicken at Sam's Club is a wonderful thing. For under five bucks, you get an entire cooked chicken ready to bend to your will. If you lack creativity, you can simply just rend the meat from the bone and eat like a savage. Alternately, you can use that cooked meat in any number of exciting recipes and then use the carcass to make a savory soup stock! Or you can just do the Midwest thing and bust open a can of cream soup and make a bake. That's what we did here. The only thing that we did to spice it up was add a packet of Sazon, as that makes most anything better. The Spud had seconds, which is a ringing endorsement. Fair warning: If you're storing leftovers, consider taking the baked shell off the top before storing it and heating it in the oven separately later. If you leave it on overnight, it suffers some sort of chemical breakdown on the bottom and gets all sticky and gooey. Give it a try and see what you think! If you don't like it, don't tell me. I'm emotionally fragile. As always, any notes are in blue.

Chicken Pot Pie Bake

Ingredients

• 3 cups cooked chicken, cubed
• 1 can (10.5oz) cream of chicken soup
• 1 can (15oz) mixed vegetables, drained
• 1 can (15oz) cut green beans, drained
• 1 packet Sazon seasoning 
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon dried parsley
• 1 tube (8oz) crescent rolls

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400F (200C/Gas Mark 6)
2. Grease 13" baking dish
3. In a large bowl, mix all ingredients except crescent rolls.
4. Empty contents of bowl into backing dish.
5. Bake for 15 minutes.
6. Find someone brave enough to open the tube of crescent rolls, because those things are absolutely terrifying. 
7. Unroll the crescent rolls. and press together into a sheet. Take the dish out of the oven and lay that sheet over the top of the contents of the baking dish, making sure the dough reaches the edge of the dish. (obviously be careful, as the dish will be hot)
8. Return dish to oven and bake an additional 10-15 minutes, or until the top is golden brown.

Look at the Golden Deliciousness.
LOOK AT IT.

Good times!

Chicken Bacon Pockets

     Every now and then I find a recipe that you can't possibly dislike. Well, I suppose you could, but it probably means you're deficient in some way. This particular recipe combines all sorts of good stuff. It's got chicken, bacon and canned dough. What's not to love? For me, it was the possibility of being bland. The judicious application of barbecue sauce and some green onion fixed that. I'm calling this recipe a winner. This is a super weeknight quick meal. If you make it using crescent rolls, you'll get four. If you use biscuit dough, you should get five, but they'll be a bit smaller. As always, notes and changes are in blue.

Chicken Bacon Pockets
via 101 Things To Do With Bacon

Ingredients

• 4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature (as always, we used neufchatel, to keep the fat down)
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 2 cups cooked, chopped chicken
• 8 strips bacon, cooked and crumbled (and don't you dare throw the grease away. Save it in a jar in the fridge for later. It's a key ingredients in Bootleg Cheddar Bay Biscuits)
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1/4 cup barbecue sauce (not in original recipe, we decided this would be a bit bland without some form of extra kick)
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped green onions (also not in the original recipe)
• 2 cans (8 ounces each) refrigerated crescent rolls (we used 1 can of 10 buttermilk biscuits)
• 2 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted
• 1 tablespoon sesame seeds (we used them, but omitting them will not notably change anything)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350F (177C, Gasmark 4)
2. In a bowl, mix the cream cheese and milk until smooth; add the chicken, bacon and pepper (and barbecue sauce, if using) and stir until combined.
3. Unroll crescent rolls and separate dough into 8 rectangles, pressing along the diagonal to seal, creating 4 "pockets" (we took 2 biscuits at a time and rolled them together into a large disc. You'll get 5 of these discs)
4. Equally divide filling and spoon onto the bottom half of each dough rectangle. Fold dough over the filling, pinch the edges to seal, and crimp the edges with a fork. (we loaded the center of each disc, then pulled the dough up around the filling. We then flipped the entire thing over, so the seam side was down. It looked kind of like a big dumpling)
5. Brush each pocket with melted butter and sprinkle with sesame seeds.
6. Transfer to a baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown. Makes 4 servings (5 if you use biscuits)

Good times!